Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Serious threats require serious action, and there is broad nonpartisan agreement that nuclear terrorism remains one of the most daunting threats of the 21st century. That is why national leaders from more than 50 countries will meet this week in Seoul, Korea, at the second Nuclear Security Summit to address nuclear terrorism. The 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington helped catalyze new commitments by states to secure loose nuclear materials, and today more than 80 percent of these commitments have been accomplished. But these measures only go so far, because there is no globally agreed-upon standard for securing nuclear material, […]

President Barack Obama has presented himself as the ender of wars. Moreover, where the preceding administration went heavy with its military power, the Obama administration goes laparoscopically light. And as if to culminate a quarter-century trend of U.S. military interventions that have all somehow devolved into manhunts of some sort, America now simply skips the intervention and gets straight to hunting down and killing bad guys. We stand our ground, as it were, on a global scale. Give us the wrong gesture, look, attitude or perceived intention, and wham! One of ours might kill one of yours — in a […]

Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old who killed seven people in southwestern France over the past two weeks, was shot dead Thursday at his Toulouse apartment after a 30-hour standoff with police. The French national of Algerian descent, who said the killings of three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers over the past two weeks were to avenge the killings of Palestinian children in Gaza, was a self-proclaimed jihadist who had visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area twice over the past two years. He represents the growing threat of homegrown extremists who identify with al-Qaida but operate on their own. And […]

The Obama administration’s national security team must walk a very delicate tightrope on Iran policy in the weeks to come. On the one hand, it must convince doubters in Iran, Israel and the U.S. Congress that the administration is prepared to use force if necessary to stop Iran from mastering the technologies needed to construct nuclear weapons. If the different factions within the Islamic Republic are not convinced that President Barack Obama is prepared to pull the proverbial trigger, they have no incentive to return to the negotiating table. And if the U.S. commitment to accept the use of force […]

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on China’s geopolitical interests in the Mekong River Basin. Part I examined the politics and impact of hydroelectric projects on the Mekong River Basin. Part II examines the security challenges to China’s efforts toward economic integration of the Mekong River Basin. Beijing’s ambitions for China-led economic integration in the Mekong River Basin have encountered several setbacks in recent months, highlighting the limits to China’s ability to use its economic power and control over the headwaters of the Mekong to its geopolitical advantage. In particular, Beijing’s plan to expand the navigational […]

The foreign ministers of Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina met earlier this month to sign a deal on sharing consular services, calling it a new era in the bilateral relationship. In an email interview, Srecko Latal, a Balkans analyst at the International Crisis Group, discussed relations between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. WPR: How have Serbia-Bosnia relations evolved over the past decade? Srecko Latal: Relations between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia have significantly improved over the past several years, from very difficult and tense relations at the end of the 1990s to the current situation in which both countries seem to understand that stability better suits […]

On March 24, Central American leaders will take a decisive step toward opening the debate on drug decriminalization by convening in Antigua, Guatemala, to discuss alternatives to the foundering war on drugs. The meeting, proposed by Guatemalan ex-general and newest member of the Central American presidents’ club Otto Pérez Molina, follows a five-country tour by his vice president to rally support for frank dialogue. It also comes on the heels of regional visits by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Vice President Joe Biden to reinforce the United States’ commitment to anti-crime cooperation and rebuff the possibility of […]

The political unrest that has gripped Syria over the past year, and the sanctions that resulted, have had a devastating impact on the country’s economy. Sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union have targeted members of the Syrian government, frozen international banking transactions and halted Syrian oil exports. And the resulting economic decline, which is just beginning to make headlines, has major implications not only for the Syrian government, but also for the Syrian people. Ayesha Sabavala, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s editor and economist for the Middle East and North Africa, explained that as the economy declines, the likelihood […]

The Pentagon says it’s suspending efforts to recover remains of fallen service members in North Korea. That’s after North Korea announced plans to launch a rocket to fire a satellite into space, which the US says would violate a UN ban. US News Video by NewsLook

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on China’s geopolitical interests in the Mekong River Basin. Part I examines the politics and impact of hydroelectric projects on the Mekong River Basin. Part II will examine the security challenges to China’s efforts toward economic integration of the Mekong River Basin. Two decades after the Paris Peace Accord that ended the proxy war in Cambodia, the Mekong Basin has re-emerged as a region of global significance. The rapid infrastructure-led integration of a region some call “Asia’s last frontier” has created tensions between and among China and its five southern […]

In the run-up to Russia’s March 4 presidential election, with opposition forces staging massive protests, Vladimir Putin sharply escalated the intensity of his anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric. His accusations of U.S. interference in Russian affairs and portrayal of America as an enemy of Russia brought back memories of the Cold War, raising the specter that Moscow would become an unmovable obstacle in the path of many of Washington’s foreign policy objectives. The concern carried particular weight at a time when the U.S. and its allies are trying to muster a united front to stop Iran’s nuclear program and to bring […]

Indian Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma visited Hanoi earlier this month to discuss cooperation in energy, medicine and information technology with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. In an email interview, David Brewster, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at the Australian National University and the author of “India as an Asia Pacific Power,” discussed India-Vietnam relations. WPR: How extensive are trade and diplomatic ties between Vietnam and India? David Brewster: India and Vietnam have a long-standing political relationship dating back to the 1960s, when India gave rhetorical support to North Vietnam’s fight […]

Last week, while in Poland to deliver a series of lectures on defense issues, I traveled by train from Warsaw to Krakow and was reminded why Norman Davies titled his magisterial history of the country, “God’s Playground.” Aside from the Great Plains of North America, one would be hard-pressed to find terrain better suited to armored and cavalry warfare — and more inviting to invaders on all sides. So it was no surprise that during my visit, many of the questions I heard from Poles concerned the health and future of the NATO alliance. Americans are fortunate enough to no […]

NATO’s military intervention in Libya once again showed that the alliance’s internal cohesion can quickly become a center of gravity in any out-of-area operation. Moreover, the strategic position adopted by the United States, now widely known by the unfortunate moniker of “leading from behind,” has put the role played by European member states into sharp relief. Given Germany’s continued reluctance to participate in out-of-area operations, Franco-British relations are now decisive in both regards. Ahead of the NATO Summit in Chicago in May, and one year after the beginning of the Libyan crisis, the strategic relationship between the U.K. and France […]

Followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrate for better living conditions in Iraq’s southern city of Basra on the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. World News Videos by NewsLook

The recent collapse of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring provides a backdrop to reflect on Latin America’s democratic transitions from authoritarian rule during the “Third Wave of Democratization” as well as to review the current health of the region’s democracies. Compared to the paucity of democracies in Latin America at the start of the Third Wave in the mid-1970s, the near-universal presence of democratic regimes today highlights the tremendous democratic progress made in the region over the past three-dozen years. Nevertheless, within this broader regional success exists considerable country-by-country variation in democratic […]

Two decades of unprecedented political, economic and social transformations in Eastern and Central Europe have produced outcomes that were hardly expected when the region emerged from communist rule. Despite initial pessimism about the prospect of establishing liberal democracy, several countries have developed consolidated democratic systems, functioning market economies and efficient democratic states with extensive welfare policies and relatively low inequality. Similarly, although there were well-founded doubts as to whether East European civil societies would ever be able to recover from decades of communist suppression, vibrant free media and well-organized associational life have emerged there as well. These countries are not […]